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The Moon of Myths
rides low tonight,
a face fingered by poplars,
a god captured in windows
and predatory dreams.
To Greek soldiers this was Selene:
the haloed flirt who smirked
just yards beyond flung spears
or the wings of Icarus.
I prefer more humble views -
these lampposts' stoic glow
as if the larger light
might gather their spilt change.
Slim unfeathered pagans
with a quieter faith -
they are waiting for white streets
old and untravelled.
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PVC Trousers
make you creak when you walk.
Try to hide that from your father.
Try to hide that from the taxi driver
who looks like your father.
Hide it with a coat, laughter.
Let loose at the club
pretending you're naked, shameless.
Pretending they're not
the first thing on your mind.
That you're walking not strutting.
Get your arse squeezed,
legs smoothed.
Spill a pint;
you're waterproof.
You seem too perfect -
make sure you speak
of the sweat, the tautness,
your father.
Wear them again next week.
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Being Professor Czermack
It's the ultimate peep show.
These smudges of black
on scientist's snapshots
bared DNA's double helix,
made cholesterol say cheese.
It can't have agreed with them,
the molecules concerned,
having their atomic integrity assaulted
by an x-ray beam,
the most unlikely of terrors.
And such a final loss of privacy.
Professor Czermack, in a similar case,
was so appalled at the photograph
of his nineteenth century skull
he could not sleep.
So when I blast you after work
with a stare fierce enough
to keep each curve of your cheekbones
and God-knows-what
locked inside me for years
you have, I admit,
every right to feel ambivalent.
For you're history now, another portrait
stamped as useful in a museum
that won't send you a penny.
No, not even a dazzling postcard.
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